By rme123 - 15 Oct 18 6:58 PM
Hi all, wondering if anyone is able to shed any light on this one. Someone I know has just asked me to act as a countersignatory for their UK passport. I'm in a "profession" in one of the listed occupations, so no concerns there. However, in the small print it says that the countersignatory must be a "person of good standing in their community". To be clear, it does say someone in one of the listed professions OR "a person of good standing...", so technically I pass their test! Nevertheless, the alarm bells have started ringing. I have a (spent) criminal record for a quite serious offence, and I'm wondering if this is going to get flagged up somehow. The person I endorsed doesn't know about this, and it could cause significant problems at work if they found out.
Has anyone with a record (spent or unspent) had any experience of endorsing a passport application? Or perhaps someone from Unlock could share their advice?
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By BenS - 18 Oct 18 8:12 AM
+x+xI totally understand your hesitation, given the reasons you explain. I don't think it's paranoid. Unlike most European countries, the UK doesn't care about data protection. When I lived abroad, every official form you filled in had a long clause saying your data won't be shared with anyone, including government. In the UK it's the opposite. If you're a UK citizen, don't you also have UK passport you can use for countersigning? If you don't, then it would be useful to get one anyway, so that any "monitoring" is based on your UK passport and you can just use your Irish passport for travelling, as it will be both easier post-Brexit and less likely to be monitored by the UK. Thanks for the feedback. I don't hold a UK passport so that isn't an option on this occasion. However, I have a feeling that even if I were to have a UK passport, they would almost certainly ask for the details of any other passports that you hold. So, they'll have the details either way. To go back to my original quandary - given that I agreed to do this and have already filled out most of the paperwork, I fear that it's a bit too late to backtrack now without raising any suspicions. I think I'm just going to have to follow through and hope that there are no consequences! Thanks again everyone for your input.
No problem - I think you'll be fine as it's an OR question and you satisfy one of the criteria. Who knows how often (if ever) countersignatories ever get followed up for confirmation.
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